Forum:Monthly Projects/Competition
Salnax proposed this idea in the watercooler a few months ago and we have been working on it for the past six weeks. As it seems to be an effective way of working, and a moderate way of promoting the site as well, we are continuing to set asside certain months for certain subjects. Users are all invited to write below any subject that they feel this Wikia should focus on for a month. Please write a short explanation for why you feel this subject should have the focus on it. The Admin will, between us, decide which ideas will go forward onto our calendar and when, although, if you have a preference for when this should happen, do put it into your suggestion: Icedragon64 23:49, March 30, 2010 (UTC) Monthly Focus/Theme Suggestions *'Crews & Clubs'- We have pages, but little real facts, links and refs on the Flash Crew pages we have; we have only one page about a BBS club. Icedragon64 00:22, March 31, 2010 (UTC) **Done 2010 *'Staff'- once we have done Mods and got a few other things out of the way, the Staff need respectably substantial pages, not just details copied from their user pages. Lets search their sites and their BBS posts. Icedragon64 00:22, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Audio Portal/Music'. The Audio Portal is a major feature of NG, and its music, plus the other music used, form a vital part of the Flash Portal and the success of NG. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Art Portal/Art'. Our wiki needs to have a Big page on the Art Portal itself, but also stuff about the Sketchbook project and the Art Forum. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Related Sites'. We want ONLY relevent sites to have pages, but those we choose will make a big difference to how our Wiki looks, going beyond the internal story. Icedragon64 00:22, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Newgrounds Features'. I suppose this means examining FAQ and the NG wiki, then rewritting it better with more info and going further into things they don't say and more links to, say wikiP for background info. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) **Done 2010 *'Pictures on Pages'. A picture is worth 1K words. Most of our pages have the obvious 1, but many need 2 to look good. Many should have a cartoony pic and some kind of photo. A game could have some kind of logo and a screen shot. Uploading shouldn't be down to just two or three people, it affects the whole way our wiki is viewed. ALL pages must have at least 1. We should list pages with no pix and tick them off it. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) **I really think this could be the biggest boost our Wiki could get in a month- Imagine if every single page had some kind of picture, if every member of Admin had two pix- one would be their Userpage pic, another would often be a photo from their posts, or a meet photo or something. This could be something that everyone could join in on and boost our Wikia Spotlight plan too. **Done 2010 Icedragon64 00:50, May 29, 2010 (UTC) **I'm good with that. I chose Video Game Parody month, so you and Spaintendo can decide on June.--Salnax 03:28, May 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Meets & Exhibitions'- We have NOTHING for these events, but it is an essential part of the motivation and success of many of the most important and influencial people involved in NG. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Preparing for Wikia Spotlight'. Having a month on this, aiming to make all of our wiki not just match the requirements but SOUNDLY BEAT the requirements, will give us the chance to talk to everyone about what our wiki is like and what our aims are. It may give people the chance to feel that they are involved in something bigger than the edits they are making in themselves. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Site Affiliates and related sites'. This is widening the scope of our wiki so that we emphasise how we go FAR BEYOND just vanity and are a place where people can find unexpected interesting things. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Newgrounds in the media etc.' This will explore how big and significant NG is. Maybe it will only affect a few pages, but those pages will be gaining links and data that are NOT on our usual sources, the User Pages and Sub pages we get so much from. Icedragon64 00:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC) *'Authors. '''The pages about flash authors have the basic information available at their user pages. Maybe we could do something like interviews to fill those pages with something more. Spaintendo 15:20, May 19, 2010 (UTC) ** I don't know about interviews, but we should improve their pages with info. This would be a worthy project. Icedragon64 00:49, May 29, 2010 (UTC) *'Characters/Mascots''' Some characters on Newgrounds have appeared in hundreds of movies and games. If characters are often used or parodied outside of their home series, then they might deserve pages.--Salnax 15:47, May 28, 2010 (UTC) ** Not, I feel, a high priority, but a good subject in due course. Icedragon64 00:49, May 29, 2010 (UTC) *'Weekly Winners. '''Being weekly first is enough to have an article, and the creation of articles for weekly winners will substantially increase the number of pages we have. Spaintendo 15:06, June 28, 2010 (UTC) Theme Dates- Chosen By Site Admin *Feb 2010- '''BBS'. Pages were written and info was added about the BBS itself, slang words from it, mods from it, sections of it. Also, exploration of the BBS yielded useful refs for existing pages. The first monthly competition was won by User:Milinko959 *March 2010- Flash Games. Starting the month with just 13 Flash Games, we aimed to have 40 games that satisfied our Notability Criteria (awards, views etc) by the end of the Month. By the end of the Month we had 45 games, all with the infobox and descriptions of the gameplay and reception on Newgrounds. We also created a page about the types of games available on NG. The winner of the Monthly Theme competition was User:Salnax *April 2010- Mods. Thanks to User:HibiscusKazeneko's initiative, we had lots of Mod pages, which User:Salnax decided were Notable. With the adoption of the Admin Infobox, though, it was glaring that some had pages and some did not, which looked inconsistant. Also, the drive to change those red links to blue produced a lot of pages which looked empty and would fail us the Stubs criterion for Wikia Spotlight. In this month, by filling in the remaining missing Mod pages, we broke the 300 pages mark, with predefined Notable pages. We added a lot of info on some pages and we created around 20 new pages to complete the infobox- a page for every Mod. We also improved the Mod page and decided to drop ex-mod Notability, so that once a mod was ex, their info shrank onto the ex-mod page unless they were otherwise Notable. User:HibiscusKazeneko won the Monthly Theme competition. *May 2010- Video Game Parodies. We started the month with less than 10 in this Category. User:Salnax chose this subject to give us a batch of pages which would be bigger than stubs as a boost to page quality, and to improve our focus on Flash, that the site is supposed to be all about. Within days we had a new Subcat, a new Cat; new pages. Salnax won this month with a mass of new pages, complete with infoboxes, pix etc. *June 2010- Pictures on Pages. We identified all pages with no pix and put them in a Cat. We set out to have at least one and preferably 2 pix on all pages. IceD targeted the small Cat of Nopix, Salnax made all new pages with 2 pix, but Spaintendo swept away the competition with a barage of pix, setting up lots of info boxes as well. *July 2010- Fill in the Stubs. In order to qualify for Wikia promotion we must reduce the percentage of pages which are stubs. We have already been identifying pages which we have removed or merged, now to focus on all remaining stubs. *August 2010- Crews. We hope to get involvement from the Crews themselves this month; we should identify anyone from the Crews who is Notable enough for a page, any more Crews that are Notable enough, fill in the Calendar; improve the pages we have; put in pix and links etc. *September 2010- ' Newgrounds Features '. I suppose this means examining FAQ and the NG wiki, then rewriting it better with more info and going further into things they don't say and more links to, say, wikiP for background info. This looks like a relatively easy one to improve on, when everyone is going back to school (and I am going back to my writing). *October 2010- Recategorization. Since this is my project (Spaintendo's), I felt like I had to write this: every page must go into one of this 4 main categories: Users, Flash Games, Flash Movies (or cartoons), and NG Culture; from them we will be more specific with subcategories, like genres in Flash Games/Movies; mods adn authors in Users; and a lot of different stuff in NG Culture. At the end of the months Spaintendo and IceD decided on 5 sections and created buttons on the Main Page. *November 2010- "Stubs again" We decided that stubs had built up to an unacceptable level again and after defining what the minimum for a non-stub page was, we reduced Stubs from over 100 to around 40, which is less than 10%. *December 2010- 2 Pix. Adding another pic to those pages with only one pic. Little work was done on this project, chosen by IceDragon64 and Tyler, so we extended it to... *January to April 2011- 2 Pix again. This was a period of relative inactivity for Wikigrounds. *April to May 2011 - Newgrounds in the Media. Newgrounds does not exist within a bubble. Users become famous, movies go viral, and games move on to other platforms.